The Dorkside Chronicles

The stillness of the quiet Friday morning hit me hard on March 9. My head was a fog of unmedicated ADHD and shock from processing the past 12 hours of news pumped in by the endless social media feeds. And I was, and still am, in a state of disbelief. Akira Toriyama, legendary manga author and illustrator: dead. I always knew I’d see that news eventually, but not this soon. Not at the height of what felt like another wave in his work’s popularity and relevance. A new Dragon Ball anime set for autumn, his old one-shot Sand Land is suddenly getting not just an animated adaptation, but a new story arc for that anime with designs and plot points contributed by him. Dragon Quest XII is still in the works with his iconic monsters and heroes no doubt already in the mix. And yet he was gone. And this hurt so, so much. I never met the man, a legendary recluse who barely showed his face to the media, but his work shaped who I am and was with me for almost 30 years of my life.  Growing up as a